book of canons, the liturgy, the High Commission, and Episcopacy itself were condemned. The bishops, who had always allied themselves with the despotic tendencies of the Crown, and to the utmost limits of their power had been the mere tools of the king and the pliant instruments of the royal will and pleasure, were convicted and condemned. Acts were passed relating to education and other important subjects. The Assembly closed its work by appointing its next meeting to be held at Edinburgh in July, 1639.

Civil war now became inevitable. General Alexander Leslie was therefore appointed leader of the Covenanting army. He soon organized a force and equipped it for the field. The Covenanters seized the castles of Edinburgh, Dumbarton, and other strongholds; and before the king arrived at York, the whole of Scotland was in the hands of the Presbyterians. In the beginning of May, the king's fleet of twenty warships, and several smaller vessels, with 5000 troops on board, sailed into Leith Roads. But both sides of the Firth were so well defended that not a boat could land. Before long, the crowded condition of the transports, miserably victualled and watered, caused disease to break out, and many victims were carried off by death.

Meanwhile, the king, having mustered his army at York in the beginning of April, 1639, advanced to the Border, and encamped on Birks plain in the valley of the Tweed, about three miles above Berwick. The Covenanters, about twelve thousand strong, advanced to fight the king, and encamped June 1st on Dunse Law, a low hill lying near the Border town of Dunse, about six miles distant from the camp of the royal forces, and on the opposite side of the Tweed. In a few days, reinforcements increased the Presbyterian army to more than twenty thousand men. Around the sides of the hill were pitched the tents of the army, each regiment forming a cluster. The top of the hill was surmounted by forty cannon. A banner-staff was planted at each captain's tent-door, from which floated the Scottish colors, displaying not only the national arms, but also this inscription in golden letters-" For Christ's Crown and Covenant.” The army was chiefly composed of Scotland's thoughtful and high-souled peasantry. Nearly a score of noblemen were present, mostly in the command of regiments, and each regiment had its minister― some of them ready and determined to take an active part in the fight against the bishops. One minister, Rev. Robert Baillie of Kilwinning, was accompanied by "half a dozen good fellows," furnished with pike and musket out of his own pocket. His servant rode after him, with a broadsword at his side. The minister himself bore a sword, and carried a brace of pistols at his saddle-bow.

When the king found a force confronting him larger than his own, he decided that it would be safer for him to treat with his subjects than to attempt forcibly to coerce them. A messenger having intimated as much to the Scottish leaders, the earl of Dunfermline was sent to negotiate with the king. Following this, an arrangement was made, by which the religious matters in dispute were to be referred to the General Assembly and to Parlia

ment.

Peace was therefore proclaimed, on June 18th, and two days later the Scots burned their camp on Dunse Law and disbanded their army. They were shrewd enough, however, to retain their principal officers in readiness to assemble the army again if occasion should arise.

It soon became evident that the king's promises had been made only to enable him to gain time to raise a larger army. He had determined to chastise the Scots, and summoned his English Parliament, which met in April, 1640. A majority of the Parliament refused to grant supplies until they obtained the redress of the grievances under which England up to that time had been meekly suffering. Rather than yield, the king dissolved the House of Commons, and then set himself to raise the necessary funds by every means in his power. In the month of July he was enabled to take the field at the head of 19,000 foot and 2000 cavalry, and marched again for the North, to engage in what his own soldiers called a "Bishops' War."

Meanwhile, the Scotch Parliament met in June. After repealing all the acts which permitted churchmen to sit and vote in Parliament, it enacted that a Parliament should meet every three years, and appointed a permanent committee of members to act when Parliament was not sitting. During the spring and summer another Covenanter army also was organized, and it rendezvoused again at Dunse Law, 22,000 foot and 3000 horse, and again under command of General Alexander Leslie. This time the Scots decided not to wait and be invaded, but to march into England. Leaving Dunse Law, they advanced to Coldstream, where they crossed the Tweed. Marching slowly through Northumberland, they came to Newburn on the Tyne, about five miles above Newcastle. Here a crossing was forced, the English retreating to York, where the King's main army lay. On August 30th, the Scots took possession of Newcastle, of all Northumberland, and of Durham, and very peaceably made their abode in those parts for about the space of a year. The Covenanters again petitioned the king to listen to their grievances, and at the same time a number of English nobles petitioned him to summon a Parliament. Unable to fight the Covenanters, he finally offered to negotiate with them, and also summoned the English Parliament to meet at Westminster on the 3d of November a meeting which afterwards became famous as the Long Parliament. To this English Parliament the Londoners sent in a petition bearing fifteen thousand names, craving to have bishops and their ceremonies radically reformed. Seven hundred clergy of the Church of England sent in a petition and remonstrance to the same effect. An immense agitation against the bishops and the arbitrary course of the king now arose, and all England became inflamed.

Peace between the king and the Scots was concluded in August, 1641; and soon after Charles visited Scotland, and attempted with fair promises to mollify its people and discourage their sympathetic interest in the struggle that had already begun in England between King and Parliament. In this year the hideous affair of the Irish rebellion and massacre threw its horrors

into the excitement which already convulsed the public mind. The king had issued commissions to certain Irish leaders authorizing them to rise in arms in his behalf, and the native Irish seized the opportunity to begin a general massacre of their Protestant neighbors, without regard to age, sex, or condition. For six months the work of butchery continued unchecked; and in that time was poured out on the heads of the settlers in Ulster and elsewhere the accumulated wrath and hatred of generations. Parents were obliged to watch the dying agonies of their children and then follow them in death. Men were hung up by the arms and gradually slashed to death to see how much a heretic could suffer before he died.

Charles seems to have imagined that he would be able to overcome the English if he could pacify the Scots. The breach between him and his English subjects was constantly widening. He returned from Edinburgh to England in November. In the spring of 1642, he was forced to leave London, and removed his court to York. On August 23d, near Nottingham, Charles's herald read the king's proclamation calling his subjects to arms, and the war between King and Parliament began.

Communications passed between the English Parliamentary party and the Covenanters. In August four English commissioners appeared before the general assembly which had convened at Edinburgh on the 2d. They expressed their appreciation of what the Covenanters had already done for the cause of liberty, and said they desired the same work might be completed in England, where they had already abolished the High Commission and Episcopacy, and expelled the bishops from the House of Lords. Therefore, they entreated the Covenanters to assist their oppressed brethren in England. After much discussion and largely through the influence of Johnstone of Warriston and his associates, it was agreed to assist the leaders of the Long Parliament. The English leaders proposed a civil league, but the Scots would listen to nothing but a religious covenant. The English suggested that toleration should be given to the Independents, but the Scots would tolerate nothing but a Presbyterian or democratic form of church government in either kingdom. After a long debate, the Solemn League and Covenant was placed before the Assembly, which met at Edinburgh in August, 1643, and unanimously adopted. All the parties to this Covenant bound themselves to preserve the Reformed religion in Scotland and to do their utmost to further its extension in England and Ireland; to endeavor to extinguish popery and episcopacy; to preserve the rights of the Parliament and the liberties of the three kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the king's person.

In England, the Long Parliament had summoned together the evermemorable Westminster Assembly of Divines, by an enactment entitled, "An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, for the calling of an Assembly of learned and Godly Divines and others, to be consulted with by Parliament, for the settling of the Government and Liturgy of the

Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing of the Doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations." Under this act, one hundred and twenty-one divines were summoned, with ten lords and twenty commoners as laymen. The Scottish Church being invited to send commissioners to assist in the deliberations of this Assembly, sent Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, Robert Baillie, and George Gillespie, ministers, with the earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston. The Assembly continued to sit for more than five years, from 1643 to 1648. The Scotch commissioners took a distinguished part in the labors and debates, but they had no vote. A copy of the Solemn League and Covenant was carried from Edinburgh to London. On September 22, 1643, the members of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Westminster Assembly of Divines all signed it; and afterwards it was signed by many in every county of England. Its immediate effect was that a Scotch army of eighteen thousand foot and three thousand horse, under Leslie, crossed the Tweed, marched south, and joined the Parliamentary army near York. On Marston Moor, four miles from York, they faced the king's army July 2, 1644. At seven in the evening the battle began. By ten o'clock the king's army was shattered and broken in pieces, and the allies stood victorious in a field strewn with four thousand dead.

From this time on, the king's cause began to go down, except for some brief successes attained by the earl of Montrose, a renegade Covenanter, who had raised a small army of Irish and Highlanders and committed many unspeakable outrages on the inhabitants of the counties of Aberdeen, Perth, and Stirling. After the battle of Naseby, June 15, 1645, in which the royal army was almost annihilated by the Parliamentary forces, Charles became a fugitive. In May of the following year, he evaded Cromwell's pursuit at Oxford, rode to the north, and surrendered to the Scottish army at Kelham, near Newcastle.

After remaining in the Scots' camp for eight months, the king was delivered to the Long Parliament, upon a promise from that body that no harm should come to his person. Charles returned to London, where a series of negotiations began again between himself and the Parliament; and after a fresh instance of treachery on the part of the king, he was condemned to death as a tyrant, murderer, and enemy of his country, and beheaded January 30, 1649.1

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXX

1 From the restoration of Charles II. the 30th of January was observed in the Church of England with special religious services as the day of King Charles the Martyr. This commemoration, offensive to the great majority of Britons, was abolished by Act of Parliament only so recently as 1859, though the day is still observed by many High Church Episcopalians in London and elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXXI

SCOTLAND UNDER CHARLES II. AND THE BISHOPS '

THE

1

HE news of the execution of Charles I. reached Edinburgh five days afterwards, and on February 5, 1649, his son, Charles II., was proclaimed king. Commissioners were despatched to Holland, where the conditions under which the Scots were willing to receive him as their ruler were proposed to the young king. These conditions had been formally set forth in an Act of Parliament, which declared that before Charles should be accepted as king he should sign and swear the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant; that he should consent to the Acts of Parliament enjoining these Covenants; and that he should never attempt to change any of them; that he should dismiss the counsel of all those opposed to the Covenants and religion; that he should give satisfaction to Parliament in everything requisite for settling a lasting peace; and that he should consent that all civil matters should be determined by Parliament, and ecclesiastical matters by the General Assembly.

Charles had given the earl of Montrose a commission authorizing him to raise troops and subdue the kingdom by force of arms; so he temporized with the commissioners and protracted the negotiations, urging Montrose to make him independent of the Presbyterians. But when the rising was crushed and Montrose hanged, Charles eagerly threw himself into the arms of the Covenanters, agreed to the terms of Parliament, embarked for Scotland, and landed near the mouth of the Spey on June 24, 1650. Although he had previously embraced Romanism, Charles now solemnly swore that he "would have no enemies but the enemies of the Covenant-no friends but the friends of the Covenant."

Cromwell, as captain-general of the English forces, marched against him with an army of 16,000 men. Leslie, who commanded the Scots, by skilful manoeuvring compelled Cromwell to retreat from Edinburgh to Dunbar. Thither Leslie followed, and against his own better judgment left a position of advantage, descended to the plain, and offered battle to Cromwell. The Scots were defeated and Edinburgh taken. Notwithstanding this disaster, Charles was crowned at Scone. The Scots then acted on the defensive, and Cromwell might have failed in conquering the northern parts of the kingdom, had not Charles marched to England, in the vain hope of being joined by the people. He was swiftly followed by Cromwell, and on the 3d of September, 1651, completely defeated at Worcester. He then fled from the kingdom, and Cromwell's power became supreme.

On the 20th of April, 1653, the Protector led three hundred men to the English House of Commons, ejected the members, and locked the doors.